Executive Education Executive Director Jim Roach explains methods for navigating complexity with clarity and empowering teams to thrive amid change.
August 05, 2025
By Jim Roach
Executive Director, Executive Education
Sometimes the only thing that seems certain about the future of work is that it will bring more complexity and uncertainty. Business, organizations and the nature of work itself will all continue to evolve at an escalating pace, fueled by technological innovation.
All of these trends will also create opportunities. New jobs, businesses and industries will be built. Paths will be created for organizations and people to adapt to change and make the transitions. Charting a course though all this and building those paths will be among the central challenges for leaders in the future of work.
Another challenge will be adapting as the role of leadership transforms. Leaders at all levels will need to think like inventors, entrepreneurs and owners. They’ll need to think strategically and holistically to help lead their organizations into the future. They’ll need to build and navigate both internal networks and business ecosystems to enable their organization’s success.
To meet the challenges that they’ll face, leaders will have to leverage vision, purpose and values to make choices and chart a course in a complex environment. In doing so, as Deloitte and others have noted, they’ll be forced to address several key paradoxes where they must navigate seemingly contradictory priorities:
- Letting go of control, empowering people by removing barriers and bureaucracy, while taking more control – actively designing and leading in to a future they help create.
- Embracing technology, innovating with AI and other technological advancements, while advocating for human-centric design to enhance human performance as they create new industries, products, jobs and professions.
- Slowing down to make sense of disruption, innovate and chart a new course, while speeding up, creating agile organizations and systems that allow teams to move at the speed of change.
- Building on experience, leveraging a strong foundation of values and lessons learned – while understanding when the moment calls for reinventing your business or your leadership style to navigate a world of continuous transformation.
Leaders in the future of work will need to create and rally organizations around new plans, navigating both uncertainty and risks along the way. This will be both challenging and daunting. But it will also be an absolutely amazing time to be a leader. The additional paradox of all of these challenges will be the tremendous array of opportunities they will bring and the privilege of enabling your team to meet them.
